OnePlus 7 with Snapdragon X50 modem to be one of the world’s first 5G phones

OnePlus' 2019 flagship phone, dubbed as OnePlus 7, will be one of the first phones to come with 5G support, said the company co-founder Carl Pei at Qualcomm's summit in Hong Kong on Tuesday.

OnePlus 7 will leverage Qualcomm's new Snapdragon X50 modem which is in compliance with the new 3GPP standards for 5G radios. The chipset giant in partnership with Ericsson announced "the successful completion of a 3GPP Rel-15 spec compliant 5G NR over-the-air (OTA) call over sub-6 GHz bands on a smartphone form factor mobile test device."

"The OTA call was conducted in the Ericsson Lab in Stockholm, Sweden on the 3.5 GHz band. Similar to the companies' first OTA calls performed using millimeter wave (mmWave) in both 28 and 39 GHz spectrum bands, which occurred in September 2018, today's sub-6 GHz call utilized Ericsson's commercial 5G NR radio AIR 6488 and baseband products and a mobile test device powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X50 5G modem and RF subsystem," explained Qualcomm.

The Qualcomm-Ericsson partnership paves way for 5G communications including voice calls through commercial handsets such as OnePlus 7. ALSO READ: Qualcomm Snapdragon 675 holds key for smarter mid-range phones

Qualcomm also announced that at least two smartphone companies will launch 5G phones in the first half of 2019. While OnePlus has already confirmed 5G support, Huawei and Samsung are also said to be working on 5G-enabled phones. Interestingly enough, Qualcomm's list of brands launching 5G phones doesn't include these two key players. However, HMD Global, LG and Asus are some of the popular brands that have partnered with the US-based chipset giant for next-generation of telecommunications. ALSO READ: What is 5G, and why it is such a big deal

Earlier this year, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau had told PCMag that the company was aiming to be one of the world's first smartphone players to offer 5G support.

Currently, OnePlus is gearing up for the launch of its next flagship phone, OnePlus 6T. The phone is scheduled to launch globally on October 29 and on October 30 in India.